Elisabeth Badinter wants to teach you girls what parenting is really all about…

France’s Elisabeth Badinter: ‘Why bother with breast feeding when you can bottle feed and have a glass of wine at the same time?’

Bon chic….motherhood according to a bon vivant.

Here’s a book that ought to work up mothers everywhere, it’s called ‘The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood undermines the status of women,’ as written by professional provocateur and billionaire (yes that part helps doesn’t it?) Elisabeth Badinter who reckons that in the past 30 years most moms (except for the French ones of course) have regressed from being the independent freedom fighters they once promised to be to only end up becoming stay at home semi dependent wenches resigned to breast feeding lovable brats on tap.

Posits Badinter, that the once independent go getter woman who wanted to rule the world (or at least let it know she had finally arrived) has now morphed into a mere shadow of herself as her life becomes a regression of self and a bastion for whatever the child needs or aspires to. To behave otherwise opens her up to the perception that she may in fact may be a selfish monster…

And what does Badinter think might make a better version of motherhood?

“A better ideal is the French mama who gives herself time for wine, laughter, fashion, culture and — of course — sex.”

Ahh yes, who could live without wine, laughter and other ahem other niceties….?

The author, herself at the age of 68 a mother of three and a mainstay of the society set has despite the condemnation her new book courtesy of angry US mothers has stuck by her guns, insisting that so many women conveniently use the modus operandi of motherhood to not have to become who they once aspired to become.

Needless to say, irked mothers here in the US hardly feel the author is attuned to the realities of what actual motherhood entails.

What Badinter also fails to disclose is that unlike the US, France offers women up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, government paid nurses who make home visits (and you begin to wonder why the typical US mother is resigned that she has so much to do on her own), subsidized child care and a tax deduction for in home help.

Offers one attorney and mother of two from NY, Fiona Schaeffer:

‘I don’t know how easygoing French parents are. I mean, the fact that they get their kids to behave in restaurants; I’ve never seen that achieved through easygoing-ness.’

Kelcey Kintner, a mother from Westchester, New York, believes that raising a child well has nothing to do with being French.

Argues Kintner: ‘A young kid who can sit through a long adult dinner is not necessarily a happy child. Just because kids are well-behaved doesn’t mean they’re happy.’

Elizabeth Hines, a mother of one from Manhattan, said Ms Badinter’s opinions provide a single school of thought that is certainly not the definitive one.

When offered this grave reality of what mothering in the US actually requires, Badinter offered the following:

“It doesn’t explain the choices of women who are free, economically, to decide whether to stay at home or not. These mothers who practice ‘intensive parenting’ are making an ideological choice.”

Indeed. Badinter even approves of children having to find out for themselves that life can be difficult and that they ought to learn from a young age that one doesn’t always get what they want. Of course that’s a tad presumptious ironic considering that Ms Badinter herself has inherited her position and wealth, as well as position in society courtesy of her family, Publicis Groupe, one of the largest communications outlets in France.

Nevermind, my grand idea should I ever become a daddy, is to casually ruffle my child’s hair, smile kindly at them before quietly tip toeing past the child’s mother to the garden with my preferred bottle of red wine of choice and wonder out aloud how good daddy’s actually have it….

TRENDING TODAY

BunnyOle

France’s Elisabeth Badinter: ‘Why bother with breast feeding when you can bottle feed and have a glass of wine at the same time?’
#1 because I am not a drunk.
#2 breast feeding creates changes in a woman’s body that make her uterus contract back down to it’s normal size and promotes healing & normalization of the reproductive organs. It ALSO can keep your periods from returning very soon and stop a new pregnancy from occurring like 6 weeks after giving birth. When you are breastfeeding, your body ‘knows’ this and puts off ovulation and menstruation. I didn’t have a period for over a year after giving birth (thank GOD)
#3 breast feeding allows the mother to give her immunity towards colds and disease to her baby while otherwise the baby is susceptible to catching anything and everything. Obviously you want your kids to catch a cold from time to time, otherwise they cannot build the IMMUNE system necessary to fight off colds, flues, infections, etc., and would be so weak that anything would kill them. HOWEVER, when they are tiny babies catching a simple cold could lead to pneumonia and death, they’re not strong enough to fight off the illness if they catch EVERYTHING they come into contact with. BREAST FEEDING is a very important part of a baby’s SURVIVAL.

DOES THAT ANSWER THIS TOTAL BABY HATING HAG’S QUESTION??

If she wants to be a total COLD frigid selfish COW, then by all means, be one – but don’t be coming to tell everybody else how stupid they are for doing something as meaningful as RAISING their children as mother’s have since the dawn of time.

Breastfeeding was one of the most beautiful experiences of my entire life. It could bring tears to your eyes. The intimacy and love is intense and incredible, there is NOTHING like it that could compare. I wouldn’t trade it for all the wine in France, and what ?? She can’t wait a few months to drink? For God’s sake she just had a baby. Even breastfeeding for a few months is very beneficial to your babies HEALTH.

But I wouldn’t expect such a SELF ABSORBED NARCISSIST to understand ANY of that or to care whether or not her baby received health benefits when she could be off floating about as a social butterfly drinking wine, while her baby lays alone with a cold piece of plastic sticking out of it’s mouth, wasting away with failure to THRIVE.

ALSO I love doing things that men can’t do – NYAH ~~~~ !!!

Vervaine

Thanks a lot fot this post. But be reassured about French women.I could say that a lot (may-be MOST) of them totally disaprouves E. Badinters’s assertion about breast and formula feeding.
I am French…

lucilleinthesky

Nice points and solid criticism. I’m sure she’s smart and has some interesting things to say, but she’s mostly just a spoiled French woman.

About

I think the idea to start “Scallywag and Vagabond.” (SCV) originates from my myriad background and the many years I have spent in preferred cafes and brasseries extolling the virtues and subtle intricacies of ‘being’ as the Beaujolais ran, the cigarette wafted and the gentleman to my side pontificated while spraying himself with a deftly tied cravat and sun crested idolatry.’

I grew up in Australia where as a young man one was obliged to become a hero of sorts. A master swimmer, fighter of causes, ideals and disheveled denizen of aesthetics, and more often a carefree ‘larrikin’ who would occasionally poke his sun bronzed nose at authority and convention Read More